Famoro Dioubate is the latest star to emerge from New York’s community of West African, and particularly Mande, musicians. He’s a world-class balafon (wooden xylophone) player who can unleash dizzying swirls of melody — a sound that is the backbone of both traditional and popular music in his native Guinea. Kakande boast musicians from Guinea, the US, and Canada, but the anchor is Dioubate’s nimble riffing and powerful praise singing, as well as the vocal fireworks unleashed by Missia Saran Dioubate, a bona fide Mande diva. Kakande offer a new take on grooves and chord progressions already popularized by the Rail Band, Bembeya Jazz, Salif Keita, Toumani Diabate, and other Mande talents. Here the balafon rules, supported by a sweet blend of electric guitar (Mamady Kouyate), cello (Raoul Rothblatt), flute (Sylvain Leroux), and sax (Avram Fefer). The support players step out on occasion, but they mostly hang with the crisp rhythm section, creating textures that work as well in a dark, roiling jam like “Paya Paya” as on a slow, mellifluous praise song like “Mariama Traoré.” The inventive instrumental and choral arrangements add freshness without denaturing the music’s inherent roots appeal.

Erin McKeown With Madeleine Peyroux and Norah Jones as ingrained in the cultural fabric as cockroaches in an Allston student flat, there isn’t much refreshing about yet another pop singer’s taking a whack at a few pages in the Great American Songbook.

LOVE DURING WARTIME | November 11, 2008 J.B. Mpiana, one of the reigning stars of contemporary Congolese music, brings a 25-strong stage show to Memorial Auditorium in Lynn this Friday, November 7, at 9 pm.

PAN-AFRICAN | June 17, 2008 Far more than a nostalgia act, Baobab are one of the freshest and most exuberant African bands on the road today.